The Magus Era

Dense grey clouds covered the sky and the earth. It was moist and cold, like countless sticky tentacles drilling into one’s body through the skin. A strong power of death mixed in the clouds, corroding everything, turning the vitality into a lifeless power of death.

It was not like Netherworld Hierarch’s Netherworld power. The Netherworld power was complicated and changeable, including the power of strict natural penalties, the quietness of death, and the variability of the great Dao of reincarnation. Therefore, despite the fact that the Netherworld Power superficially represented death, it was more like a seed buried in bone ashes that had a hope of life.

The grey clouds released by the figure walked out from behind Fan Hai were about pure death. Lifeless, hopeless... Once the death happened, the silence would be eternal. It was true death, that could make one despair from deep down one’s heart.

When the grey cloud wrapped his body, Ji Hao felt a piercing pain from his skin, as if he were cut by shape knives. His body became heavy, and he even had difficulty in moving.

The power of death had been crazily eroding Ji Hao’s body. Around him, space, time, and all tangible and intangible natural forces had all been corroding. Everything was collapsing, everything was dying. Even the concept of ’death’ itself had been fading and disintegrating rapidly, becoming something even worse.

Ji Hao’s embryo of Dao moved. In the grey clouds, countless voices seemed to shriek. They were silent, but one could hear them clearly. They were roaring in fury, ’Die, die, die! Don’t fight, don’t resist! It’s hopeless, always hopeless!’

A tremor went through Ji Hao’s body, bringing out a mouthful of blood.

His blood glistened like gemstones. Once the blood left his body, it was turned dark grey, turning into a strand of ash that drifted down to the ground. Ji Hao lowered his head and looked at the strand of ash. It fell on a mountain and generated a muffled boom. Following the boom, the hundred-meters-wide mountain was gone. It collapsed into ashes instantly, as if it had been through tens of thousands of centuries.

"Fan Gu!" Yemo Shayi gave a resonant growl, transforming into a blood-red beam of light as he attempted to rush towards the man who walked out from behind Fan Hai.

"Yemo Shayi, where do you think you’re going?" Yemo Xiu shouted out as well. He leaped to the sky and transformed into a dense cloud of dark mist. Within a blink of an eye, he turned himself into a giant black swirl and released a tremendous devouring power to stop Yemo Shayi. Once the fight was started, Yemo Xiu directly activated his greatest power gifted from the Dark Moon and launched his strongest attack.

Yemo Shayi gave a muffled moan. Flashing across the sky, he also transformed into a cloud of dark mist and condensed into a dark swirl, floating in the air. Two hundred-miles-wide black swirls clashed against each other and devoured each other. Occasionally, lightning bolts burst where the two dark swirls made contact, disappearing immediately after intensively vibrating the surrounding space and creating countless space cracks.

The twisting devouring power reached out in all directions. Under its effect, rocks floated up from the ground and swiftly flew towards the two dark swirls, being shredded once they touched the two swirls.

Ji Hao looked at the man called Fan Gu seriously.

Surrounded by grey clouds, Fan Gu was wearing a grey cloak, holding a scythe with both hands. His skin wrapped his bones tightly, which made him look like a moving skeleton. His appearance reminded Ji Hao of ’Death’ that he read about from western mythologies back in his previous life.

Fan Gu was much taller than Fan Hai. His grey skin was thickly covered in dark spell symbols, each of which looked like a twisted, desperately screaming soul. One would be utterly discomforted by simply looking at those spell symbols.

"Fan Gu?" Ji Hao quickly recalled the records about powerful non-humankind beings kept in the Magi Palace in secret history books.

Before, Ji Hao’s position wasn’t high enough, and he didn’t have a rich experience. So, some core secret records kept in the Magi Palace weren’t open to him. During the flood, Ji Hao had made incalculable contributions, and added his special right of being in charge given by Emperor Shun, he took a batch of secret records from the Magi Palace. When he had the time, he would read some.

Fan Gu was a powerful elder from the Nether Moon, a member of the highest council of elders in Yu Dynasty, and a sworn enemy of Emperor Shennong!

Emperor Shennong tried all kinds of herbs on himself and developed the herbal medicine system. Emperor Shennong’s power was full of vigor, and could even bring the dead back to life. Naturally, Shennong’s power made him the strongest enemy of the Nether Moon. Fan Gu tried to assassinate Emperor Shennong seven times, yet he was injured by the latter severely four times, and the other three times, Emperor Shennong almost killed him.

Back then, Fan Gu was already a Sun and Moon stage powerful being, while Shennong was merely a half-step Supreme Magus. Fan Gu was at the higher level of power, but he suffered numerous crushing defeats from Emperor Shennong, making him extremely enraged. After Emperor Shennong successfully merged with his spirit star and became a Supreme Magus, Fan Gu never showed up again.

"Little human kid, I haven’t fought anyone myself in years." Fan Gu snickered and abruptly dropped his scythe. He took out a crystal goblet, poured himself a glass of wine, then flicked his fingers. A pink rose appeared between his fingers.

Gently sniffing the rose and taking a sip of the wine, Fan Gu sighed, "I am tired of fighting and killing. Only the best wine, fresh flowers, and beautiful young girls are the nature of life!"

Hearing him, Fan Hai’s face twisted slightly. Remaining silent, he lowered his head.

The power of the Nether Moon was a pure power of death. Nether Moon people were also good zombie makers. Fan Gu, this old being, had ’death’ filled in almost every pore of his, but why was he talking about ’nature of life’?

Fan Hai felt that his face was burning slightly. Fan Gu, this old being, truly made him quite embarrassed.

"Isn’t challenging Shennong and being beaten by him like a dead dog your nature of life?" Ji Hao pulled out Pan Gu Dragon Mark and said evilly, "I heard that you had nothing but half a skull remained once, when you luckily escaped from Shennong. Growing such a large body back wasn’t easy, was it? Or, have you taken someone else’s body?"

The rose held in Fan Gu’s hands exploded suddenly, while the goblet turned into ashes.

Fan Gu’s hideous, skeleton-like face twisted suddenly as he gripped the scythe. His palms rubbed against the hilt of the scythe, even causing a squeaking noise. He stared at Ji Hao in rage, with grey mist puffing out of his nostrils.

"Shennong!" Gray long hair stood straight up from Fan Gu’s head. "Shennong!" He shrieked madly, "Don’t mention this name in front of me! Ah! Shennong! Get the hell out! Come on! Fight! Let me chop you into pieces! Shennong! Emperor Shennong! Get the hell out! Your herbs can bring the dead back to life! Come on! I’ll chop this kid, then you can bring him back to life!"

Roaring like a beast, Fan Gu’s scythe suddenly reached towards Ji Hao’s head and hacked down swiftly.